Category Archives: Humor

I watch very little television these days. Besides having better things to do with my life, there are several reasons, among which are the fact that the prime-time sitcoms and shows have become so inane, raunchy and uninteresting. Another reason is that there’s very little left worth watching on free TV. Nearly all the sports, save the NFL, have moved to Pay TV, which I refuse to pay for and set up. I just have a very hard time paying for something I used to get free, particularly when Pay TV is just as larded up with commercials as free TV (When I was younger and cable (only) channels first came out they were commercial-free!) Also, when was the last time you saw a good movie or miniseries made for TV? I believe TV has indeed become a “vast wasteland.” There is one time though that I do take in some serious TV watching, and that is the Olympics! I know many of you youngsters won’t grasp this, but for me, it’s always been like binge-watching the classic “ABC’s Wide World of Sports” (ABC’s WWOS crew USED to cover the Olympics and always did an excellent job). NBC’s Rio coverage did take a lot of criticism, but in my opinion, they did a pretty good job of covering it. They covered all the main sports I was interested in and had the right mixture of “puff pieces” interspersed with actual event coverage, interviews and stories with key athletes. My favorite things to watch are track and field, swimming, beach volleyball and women’s gymnastics, which were all covered very well. Of course, I would like to see a little Badminton, but I understand why they wouldn’t bother with that, however, it’d been nice to have seen a little more soccer and basketball in place of some of the volleyball and water polo. My only other complaint is the fact that they spent half their time playing the same half-dozen sappy, cheesy commercials ad nauseam. Olympic commercials should be like super-bowl commercials, considering what advertisers have to pay for Olympic airtime, especially if they’re going to run over and over again! Despite this, I can understand that NBC didn’t have much choice considering the billion$ they had to pay for the rights to broadcast the games, so I can’t really fault NBC for the mass-commercialization necessary to do the broadcast. Unlike past olympiads, I forwent awarding medals for commercials, since none of them were particularly interesting, with honorable mention to AT&T for the lone exception of the internet service commercial with the frustrated guy who’s internet service is down desparately firing a flair gun out the window while yelling to the sky “WE’RE OVER HERE, INTERNET!” So, overall I give NBC a silver medal for their quality and professional Olympic coverage, especially for us old farts with slow, crappy U.S. internet services for whom trying to stream things from the internet is just not nearly as good as watching on the ol’ big screen high-def. TV!

I thought Rio and Brazil did a bronze medal job of hosting the games, especially for a second/third world country in rather dire economic straits (except for the inability to timely provide a clean diving well). I thought the games went very smoothly except for the requisite “ugly Americans” episode at a local Rio gas station. There were very few controversies involving the competitions, officiating, and judging (except for boxing), which I felt were professional and well done. One thing I would consider changing would be the false start rules in track. I understand the reason for DQ-ing a false starter is to prevent repeated false starts which can result for pulled muscle injuries for athletes, but I think that an immediate DQ after four years of full-time hard work is just a little harsh. My proposal would be to assess something like a one meter penalty in the runner’s starting position, maybe, or adding a time penalty based on a percentage of the world-record time for the particular event. This would also work in swimming and would strongly discourage false starting, but still allow an athlete to participate. It should also more than compensate for any possible advantage the athlete would have gained from the false start while still preventing the need to do repeat starts and completely crush an athlete’s dream for what often is just an inadvertent flinch.

“Nikki Hamblin (New Zealand) encourages Abbey D’Agostino”
Photo (2016) by -unknown-I really felt for American 5k runner Abbey D’Agostino and New Zealand’s Nikki Hamblin who tripped over each other in a qualifying heat. I was planning to award them the Pierre de Coubertin medal myself, but the IOC did the right and awesome thing beating me to it! They also qualified both through to the final, but D’Agostino was unable to compete in the final due to the torn ACL injury she sustained in the collision. Read more!

I felt really bad for, but also angry with the US. 4×100 sprint relay team. This is like the third or fourth Olympics in a row they have failed to turn in a valid time in this race! We used to OWN this event! WHY can’t they practice teamwork in handing off the baton a little more during four years of training? On the other hand, I thought the DQ this time was simply a little ticky-tack. I know that “inconclusive replays” generally can not overturn “the call on the field”, but when the call involves the question of whether or not a rule was violated (as opposed to whether a score or other athletic goal was achieved), the rule of “innocent until proven guilty” should prevail and (as in this case), since the replay was inconclusive that the hand-off actually took place “outside the zone” the call should’ve been overturned and the hand-off allowed as legal. To be DQ’d, the replay should’ve had to shown conclusively that it was illegal, especially since it could’ve had zero impact on the race time or upon any other team.

I was very impressed with the US team’s improved performance in distance running (being a miler and distance runner myself back in the day)! To see Matthew Centromites win Gold in the Mile (1500m) was really sweet with a time of 3′:50.0″, and then to also see Ashton Eaton become the “worlds greatest athlete” by running away with the gold in the Decathlon! Then Evan Joger and Paul Chelino took silver in the steeple chase and 5k respectively and Galen Rupp grabbed the bronze in the Marathon finally overcoming the long history of Kenyan dominance in distance running. In addition we dominated the relays (the men’s 4×100 excepted) by piling up even more gold. US women dominated the sprints and also won field events and the triathlon too!

Overall, it was an outstanding Olympics for the U.S. AND Texas too! The U.S. swept the “Medaling Events” taking gold in both “Gold Medaling” and “Overall Medaling” with 46 gold, 37 silver, 38 bronze, 121 total medals. In “Overall Medaling”, China took silver with 26 gold, 18, silver, 26 bronze, 70 total, and Great Britain took bronze with 27 gold, 23 silver, 17 bronze, 67 total. In “Gold Medaling”, Great Britain took silver with 27 and our “Republic of Texas” – YES! – Texas, our TEXAS tied with China, the most populous nation on Earth for bronze with 26 gold medals! The home team of Brazil fared well for their size with 7 gold, 6 silver, and 6 bronze for nineteen medals, including the coveted men’s soccer and both team and beach volleyball medals. It was also cool to see the tiny country of Fiji win gold in 7-man Rugby too! Overall 54 countries had at least one gold medal athlete or team to celebrate and 78 had athletes or teams bring home at least one Olympic medal! America’s Matt Kuchar took bronze in Olympic Golf. It was sad to see Jordan Spieth awol fearing Zika though. I bet he wishes now that he’d shown up and played!

Congratulations to these fine Olympic athletes for accomplishing what few athletes ever do: winning an Olympic medal! H. Solo and Chewbacca were kind enough to pose for me after the ceremony! Chewbacca insisted on posing, but Solo tried at the last moment to block my shot with her free hand, but was too late!

This game’s “Wooden Medal” (awarded for (usually) 4th place and below (expectations) finishes due to utter underwhelming performance, lack of preparation / work-ethic, rotten luck, choking, excessive whining, embarrassment, and / or otherwise snatching defeat from the jaws of near-certain victory, etc.) goes equally to both gender versions of the U.S. Hockey Team; with the whole Men’s Long-track Speed-skating Team finishing a very close second.

Congratulations, Team USA for these and all the other medals won and to everyone for their efforts, medal winning or otherwise who gave their best to represent themselves and the United States in this year’s Olympics!

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My sun room with brand new windows.Every time I look out a window, there’s a new window! The big news this week was upgrading our windows. But Jim, you’re a Linux user, what do you mean, upgrading your windows?! I’m talking about the actual physical windows in our house and sun room, not my computer! We built our sun room eleven years ago and, not knowing anything about windows we put in the “builder-grade” windows the handyman (who is otherwise very skilled and through) recommended from The Home Depot. They turned out to be absolute crap. After eleven years, most didn’t open anymore and nearly all were “fogged out” in between the glass. Our ’70s-vintage house windows have held up much better, but I’ve had to jury-rig the springs back together on a few of them as well. They were considered “energy-efficient” in their day, but now seemed to leak cold air around the corners of the sash on cold Winter days. They were all dark brown in color and dark brown is now very hard and expensive to get in the better-quality vinyl windows. Therefore, I decided to just replace all the windows in both the sun room and the house so they all match. After talking to a big-box store and interviewing two independent contractors, I went with one of the contractors – America’s Choice Windows. I researched them on the web and did not find any problems with the company. Brian Walker, their sales rep from Dallas came out to my house and brought sample windows for me to examine. It took less than three weeks (promised within four weeks kept) between first contact and completed job! They answered all my questions and offered the best windows for the lowest price, were prompt, showed up when they said they would, and did a thorough job installing all twenty-one of our new windows in a single day with a two-man crew. You will, however, want to be sure and check the opening and closing of both the top and bottom sashes on each window, open at least the bottom sash out as if cleaning, inspect the fit of the screens and check all the caulk work before they leave (with your money). They did do a good, conscientious job, but they still had to adjust several of them to get them working just right. All of the old windows and debris was hauled away. They are all vinyl “double-hung” windows made here in the U.S.A. by Vista Window Company. So far, I’m very happy with all the new windows! We just had our first cold weather this weekend and they do seem much tighter, with no cold air leaking through. They all open and close very easily now, and if I ever have any trouble with any of them, they are guaranteed for fifty years (longer than I’m likely to last)!

GOP sees food fight as kids trash USDA fruit, vegetable guidelines.by Pete Kasperowicz, The Hill, Oct. 19, 2012.me:Once again, another example of Liberalism run amok. According to our Constitution, the Federal Government has NO BUSINESS feeding our children. That is the parents’ responsibility. If these kids are truly “hungry”, they wouldn’t be throwing good food away anyway! Schools do not exist to feed children, they exist to educate them. Yet another reason why the government schools should be privatized, or at least go back to being totally locally-funded and controlled!

Quote of the day “WHY does it matter to anyone how much someone ELSE earns? The economy is not a zero-sum game. How much a CEO makes or anyone else for that matter (should) have no bearing on what you make. In a free society, the rules are supposed to be applied fairly to everyone and each person makes what the market deems their contribution to be worth. There’s no such thing as a “fair share” of taxes either. Taxes should be applied fairly across the board and only be imposed to provide the necessary functions of government (whose only chartered purpose, at least here in the States, is to “provide for the common defense, PROMOTE the general welfare and SECURE the blessings of LIBERTY to ourselves and our posterity). The market is almost ALWAYS better than any government policy wonk at determining what people should make.” – me, in response to:“‘Surge’ in Top Incomes Demands A Response“, by Miles Corak, The Globe and Mail, Oct. 18 2012.

Creating dynamic image maps that toggle highlighting of each area when clicked, and that submits a form with a list of areas selected (highlighted) using HTML and simple JavaScript:

Partial screenshot of mapped image showing 3 selected fields (in translucent pink).I was tasked at work with creating an image map from one of their busier screens (one with a large number of input fields) to provide an interface for users to select fields with their mouse for creating their own custom reports on the fly. I came up with the image map idea since the users are already very familiar with the fields and where they appear on this screen.

A normal HTML image map is composed of multiple “click-able” regions which, when “clicked” with a mouse, a CGI program is launched based on which region is clicked. I needed a slight variation of that concept where the user could click a region representing a field and the field would be toggled (added to or removed from the list of fields the user had selected). The problem I soon discovered was is that there was no easy way to mark / highlight a region as it is selected, so that the user can easily see which fields he has already selected. After googling around I found out that this is because HTML image map <AREA> tags are not “visible”, meaning that they can not be “styled” with CSS to change their appearance dynamically. I then remembered creating a background image with HTML input form elements overlaying it a while back for another project (details in my September 2010 blog-post “Absolute Positioning for Absolute Control“). I was able to layer the input fields over the background image with precise relative location specifications. I got to thinking about overlaying the fields when the user clicks them with a translucent rectangle image highlighting the field while permitting the user to still see the field he has selected. HTML permits one to specify the width and height of an image and JavaScript permits one to dynamically create, display, and hide images and other HTML elements. I created a red, translucent image the size of my background image using The GIMP by selecting a slightly pinkish-red color and filling the canvas with that. Then I created an alpha channel and reduced the opacity to 33% and saved it as a PNG.

The trick is to dynamically create an HTML image element containing my newly-created image and then place it precisely over the <AREA> tag that the user clicked, with the same dimentions as the coordinates of the selected region. First, I had to create the page, which simply consists of the image and an HTML form with a submit button below it (for the user to press when they have selected all their fields). After the <BODY> and <FORM> tags, you need a <DIV> tag styled for “relative” positioning. Your <IMG> and <MAP> tags must be enclosed with it. I added a hidden field called “fields”, which the JavaScript function called when the form is submitted will put the final list of fields the user has selected as a string, for return to the CGI script. I also included the submit button (the rest of the page) within it as well. This DIV must be followed immediately with a second, empty <DIV> tag with an ID that our JavaScript will fill with our translucent highlighting image that I previously discussed creating.

I also used GIMP to create the image map. GIMP allows you to use your mouse to select each click-able region on your image and automatically generates the HTML image map in a file with the same name as your image, but with a “.map” extension. I then pasted the content of that file into my HTML form. I had to tweak the <AREA> tags to change the URL (HREF) parameter to “#” and add an “onClick” parameter referencing the JavaScript function I want called when the user clicks on the region bounded by each <AREA> tag. For parameters, I pass “this” (a self-reference to the <AREA> tag) and a string representing the name of the field represented by that particular area of the map – to distinguish which area the user has clicked on. I named this function “addfield()”, since it’s function is to add the field clicked on to a list. I declared the list as a global JavaScript array variable, calling it “fldlst”.

Even though the user’s clicking on a given area of the image needs to “toggle” the field by either highlighting it and adding it to the list, or removing the highlighting and removing it from the list of selected fields, the “addfield()” function need only add the field and highlight it. The reason for this is that when the field is highlighted, the red translucent image is displayed “on top of” the main image. This results in the “onClick” function in the image map’s <AREA> tag NOT being called! Instead, a separate “onClick” function I called “togglefield()” must be specified in the dynamically created <IMG> tag that displays the highlighting image. This function must be a separate function, since we will not pass the “this” argument to it (since “this” would refer to an <IMG> tag and not an <AREA> tag, and besides, we don’t need the coordinates), which exists solely to remove the highlight image and the field from the list. Actually, to keep it simple and clean, we don’t actually remove the highlight image from the area it’s highlighting if the user deselects a previously-selected field. We instead simply make it invisible by setting the “display” style to “none”. This way, if the user later re-selects the same field, the “addfield()” function checks for the existence of the image before attempting to create it and simply sets it’s “display” style back to “”, making it visible once again, if the image already exists. This requires that we create the <IMG> tag with a unique ID value that includes the field name (we pass to addfield() and togglefield()) for later referencing.

A third JavaScript function is needed for invocation when the form is submitted to put the final list of selected fields in a hidden form field I named “fields” to be returned to the CGI handler script. I called this function “doonsubmit()”. It appends the global list (“fldlst”) built by the addfield() function into a comma-separated string of field names and puts that into the hidden form field “fields”.

I also found that the IE browser offsets the image on the top of the page slightly different than Firefox or Chrome, so I have to query the browser name and set the “xoffset” and “yoffset” values appropriately to get the highlighted image’s coordinates to match up with those of the corresponding coordinates from the <AREA> tags. You may need/want to adjust these slightly to improve the visual appeal. Also note, that in the addfield() function, we have to get the <AREA> tag’s coordinate values, which are two X,Y pairs and convert them into a single X,Y pair and width and height values for the <AREA> tag it builds for the highlight image.

The full HTML page and the three JavaScript functions are shown below:

Today’s quote: “Veblen warned that a combination of this aristocratic disdain for industrial progress and an ill-informed proletariat that had no real understanding for business but simply resented businessmen as “the rich,” could form a lethal tandem to undermine any advanced society. This alliance between the top and the bottom would squeeze the productive middle classes that produce most of the wealth.”by: William Tucker,from: “With Obama It’s Top and Bottom Against the Middle“,American Spectator.org, Oct. 11, 2012.

Come Monday, by Jimmy BuffettI’ve always associated this song with Labor Day. I’ve “got my hushpuppies on” and am just goofing off and writing this blog. Otherwise, no plans, just taking a deep breath and catching up on domestic chores.

Took this photo of the approaching train in color while out walking, applied b&w infrared and sepia filters in the camera, and then used GIMP to touch up the sepia and contrast.

I took this photo of a female wolf spider whose eggs have recently hatched and all of her offspring are riding on her back, which they will do until they are old enough to get along on their own. I also used my 90mm macro lens for this night photo, along with flash. The challenge here was to get close enough to capture the detail of the dozens of tiny spiders on her abdomin while still getting the pop-up flash on the camera to flash over the extended length of this lens. I saw several such spider moms out that night while walking. I had seen them the previous night and made sure that I brought my macro with me this time!Melissa Ohden was born alive after a failed abortion – Another reason I’m pro Life!